Without The Bitter, The Sweet Isn't As Sweet (Dance MomsChloe Story)
by spencershasting
Summary: Chloe, Maddie, Mackenzie, Nia, and Kendall are all still dancing for Abby, Though they are now nearing the end of HS and entering the real world. Today, their lives are just as effected by Abby and the show as they were when they were just kids. Chloe has never fully bounced back from Abby's abuse. Will it effect her future choices and relationships, or will she realize her worth?
1. Chapter 1

Chloe sat on the bench in the dressing room surrounded by all of her childhood dance friends; it was the same as any other Friday evening before a competition weekend. They had practiced day in and day out, and finally, Abby released them at 10:00 p.m. It was considerably a rather early night for them, but since the competition wasn't until Sunday and they'd rehearse the following day, she let them leave because they were all too tired and unfocused to make any real progress after it hit 10 p.m.

Chloe scrolled through her phone, sifting through missed emails, texts, and social media notifications while sipping from her water bottle. The other girls were throwing dance shoes and Foot Undeez into bags, swapping warm-ups and dance clothes that had all gotten mixed up from when they changed, and chatting and giggling loudly, as teenage girls so often did. They were all in high school now. Well, Nia and Chloe were just finishing senior year, but the dance season extended until August, when they'd be moving on to the next chapter of their lives. The show had ended, but the nightmare that was ALDC had not. Chloe was staring at the open text message conversation, the cursor blinking at her waiting for a response. Chloe rarely met an occasion where she didn't have the answer (typically the right one), so when he stumped her, she froze.

"Chloe, are you coming?" She heard Kendall's voice call her, pulling her out of her phone. Chloe looked up, alerted. "What?" She asked, but saw them all waiting for her by the door. "Oh, yeah, I'm coming." She slung her bag over her shoulder and pulled her keys from her leather jacket's pocket.

"When we get to my house, we have to be quiet, my sister will probably be asleep." Kendall reiterated.

"Wait, what?" Chloe squinted.

"Ugh, Chloe. We are all going to my house for a night swim and some beers; we JUST planned this inside, Chlo, after Abby told us we don't have to be in until 11:30 a.m. I knew you weren't listening!" Kendall rolled her eyes. "You spend too much time on your phone. But you're coming, right?" Kendall perked up. She loved being the host, it made her feel popular.

Chloe bit her lip and remembered the text message she still hadn't responded to and that damn blinking cursor. "I actually have to get home. I promised my mom I'd be home at a decent hour to help Clara with a project." She lied through her teeth, but with a smile hoped it would read as the truth.

"Please, you're totally going to see Brooke and Paige, I saw Brooke got home yesterday on Facebook." Maddie rolled her eyes and hopped into the passenger's seat of Nia's car. Maddie and Mackenzie were the only two who hadn't gotten their licenses yet, which was unexplained to all of them, but they all had speculated it was probably some sort of an Abby rule.

"You know it's against the rules for me to see them during the season," Chloe frowned. Of course she broke the rules often, but she hid that from all of the girls, even Nia, her best friend on the team.

"Leave her alone, guys. We'll see you in the morning, Chlo. But please promise you're still coming to the party Sunday night." Nia said in a tone so upbeat she was practically bouncing, while standing at her car's driver's side waiting to get in for the conversation to end.

"Yeah, uh, I'll be there. Just text me the details to remind me…or we can just all carpool after the show." Chloe sat with her hand still on the handle of her old little Hyundai, the door cracked open, being so eager to speed away from the studio and all of her dance friends. She loved them, and they grew up like family, but they were from different worlds. Besides Chloe being the clear least favorite of ALDC, you could barely call her an underdog, the girls all had a special bond from traveling with Abby for ALDC events outside of competitions that Chloe was very blatantly not invited, or even allowed, to attend. She often felt out of place and awkward with the whole group for the past few years, and she just wanted to go back to the comfort of her regular car and regular life outside of their homeschooled, well-traveled, luxury car and vacation home planet. Her car was a beat up cherry-red Hyundai from 2009, and she liked it that way. She found comfort in the understated, just as she found beauty in the things others often didn't. The same way she wished for someone to find the beauty lodged somewhere inside of her, because though she had been groomed into seeing the girl in the mirror surrounded by a cloud of flaws, she knew she had something to offer. Like a magic secret, she held that little hope of a tiny spark close to her heart, waiting for the right person to fish it out. She wasn't anything extraordinary, and didn't like to pretend like the story was anything different. Her modest life just mirrored those same beliefs.

She waited until the other girls got into their respective cars before hopping in hers and pulling out her phone again.

"I'll be there soon," she texted, adding a winking emoji. She backspaced over it, but decided in the moment to retype it and hit send before re-thinking it again. She raced off to the other side of town, with her radio up.

_I think he really likes me,_ she thought to herself, nearly giggling and squealing at the thought, even though she was alone in the moment's excitement. _Tonight,_ she thought, _everything will change._


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe pulled up in front of the large house and took a few deep breaths. She pulled down the visor and turned on the inside light so she could see in the mirror. She squinted at the sudden brightness, and was immediately greeted by her own illuminated face. She reached next to her in her bag and dug out her makeup bag, swiping her lip gloss across her lips quickly and fixing the edges with her pinky finger, which remained a dark shade of brownish-pink. She quickly touched up her mascara, and decided she had hit just the right balance between casual and striking. She took another deep breath and flipped up the visor before she got too nervous staring at her own reflection and changed her mind.

"Here J" she sent and slid her cell phone back into her pocket. She took a moment before finally getting out of her car, locking it, and standing on the unfamiliar porch. She paced back and forth, her ponytail wagging back and forth vigorously, before finally hearing the unmistakable sound of a lock unclicking, and the door creaking open.

And there he was. She exhaled louder than she meant to, her cheeks a shade of pink so deep, you'd swear she'd applied blush, and she ever so slightly turned the corner of her mouth up into a smile. "Hey," she heard somewhere in the distance, as she was caught up in her own thoughts again.

_Wow, he's cuter than I remember. Too cute for me to be here right now. Was he this tall last time I saw him? I think he's grown. Ugh, his hair is all messed up in his eyes. I wonder how his eyes got to be so… pretty. I mean, that's the only word to describe them… I know he's a boy and he'd probably be offended if he knew I thought his eyes were "pretty," as if that word could even do them justice…they're the perfect shade of Autumn brown, with little specs of blue – like little whirlpools…Oh, shit, he just said something. Just smile, Chlo. You can't have the first thing you say to him, after he so graciously invited you over for a movie night but an utterance of confusion. Snap out of it! Say something!_ She reprimanded herself in her head, and coughed before stammering out a "Hey, Nick." She smiled a bit more.

He smirked a bit at her stutter, and her clear-cut innocence in all of this. Nick used to dance, and they'd even danced together at some point when they were young. But they had also spend a large portion of their adolescence and early teen years competing against each other in the worst way – he had been, for a short time, a part of Candy Apples' Dance Center. After he left Crazy Cathy and those Rotten Apples, he ended up at Studio Blu, a big ALDC competitor. But eventually, Nick had quit dance all together to take up baseball, which it turned out he was really good at. He was a bit older than Chloe, and had been playing college ball for the past two or three years. He even had Minor League scouts watching him. He was definitely out to make a name for himself.

Chloe and Nick had met at a party about two weeks ago, but unfortunately Chloe's friends, and her ride, had pulled her away to leave because Mackenzie thought Maddie was going to rat them out for staying out and being most likely hungover the next morning in rehearsal, leaving Chloe and Nick barely reacquainted, but both obviously wanting more. He'd even kissed her on the cheek, but she swore she flinched and he'd gone in for the lips. She had been texting with him since, games of 20 Questions, Never Have I Ever, and 4 AM "What If's…" over the course of the last two weeks.

And now, here she was with him again, in the flesh. _Gosh, my mother would hate to know where I am right now. Imagine if the girls knew who I was out seeing… And forget Abby…she would have a fit so big the whole Earth would shake._ Chloe laughed to herself. She felt like electricity shot up her spine as Nick put his hands on her hips and pulled her inside his front door, and leaned so close to her face that she could feel his breath on her neck. She then felt more than his breath, but his lips pressed to her earlobe, pecking it and whispering the three words she had been too afraid to type for fourteen days, and to say when they'd nearly spilled their drinks on each other at the bonfire party – "I missed you."

He pulled away, leaving a solid foot between them, and she felt like pouting after being so close. Chloe was very inexperienced, and every touch felt like a beautiful mix of pins and needles and butterflies and fire. She could barely remember to breath, but gosh, did she feel _lucky._

"What did you want to watch?" Chloe followed his lead, and he shut his bedroom door behind him. She delicately put a finger on his DVD rack, scanning the titles for something familiar. She felt his hands grip her thin frame by the hips, and his torso press into her back, his head in the nook of her neck.

"Why don't we get comfortable first?" He hummed into her ear again, his breath hot on her skin. He lingered there for just a moment before pressing his lips onto her soft, delicate neck. It felt good, but Chloe was having trouble analyzing the situation. She was intelligent, but not the most socially apt, between her bookworm tendencies and her long hours at the dance studio, she rarely did much outside of your average high school party, and even that was based around her dance friends' and their attendance. She spun around to look at him, and those pretty eyes again, even if it was dark in his room, which was lit with just a single desk lamp in the corner.

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but before she could even get a sound out, or recall what she was going to say, she felt his lips crash into hers. She was surprised, but she didn't stop. She pulled back a little bit, but he just kissed up her jawline and ear, and back to her lips. He parted her lips with his tongue, and she took it inside of her mouth, tangling hers with his, hoping that she was keeping up and doing it all right. She'd kissed before, and even made out, but nothing had been this fast…this hard… She mistook his eagerness for passion, and felt smiles in kisses that she would have normally felt sick watching on others crude displays of PDA.

She finally pulled away for air, and pulled her hair down from it's high ponytail, shaking out the dent her hair had from hours of being pulled back. She could always rely on the incredible feeling of shaking her hair out after a long day, and this was no exception. But tonight, it was different. Because as she shook down her long, gold locks, she had his attention on her, 110%. She was a turn-on, even more so in that moment than she'd ever been in front of a guy, and she was totally unaware of the spell she'd cast over him with that one motion.

"Come on, let's get comfortable." He repeated, and pulled her onto his bed with him. At first, they sat on the bed against the wall. He placed one hand around her waist, and the other on her head, pulling her towards him again. Once again, he let his lips lock onto hers, like unbreakable magnets glued to one another in some constant state of attraction. His hands massaged through her hair, and his tongue glided further into her mouth by the minute. He wasted no time in laying her down, and climbing atop the young blonde, attacking her lips and neck. His hands switched from playing with her loose curls to exploring her slight curves along her sides.

She didn't know what to think, but she certainly didn't think of stopping him. Her thoughts were flowing at 300 mph, and her senses were heightened to a point where she couldn't control much. Between dance and school, Chloe barely had time to update a Facebook status, never mind time to prepare herself for this. _We'll just stay like this for a bit…it's nice. I knew he liked me! This is awesome. He's so good at this. I hope it's not too obvious I'm pretty new at this. _She felt her brain catching up to her thoughts. _And we'll watch a movie after this, and it'll be way better than drunk pool and movie night with the girls. This is the perfect date. _She smiled into the kiss.

He slid his hands up her shirt, and she pulled back, finally back to Earth from her stay over the moon. He saw her panic-stricken face, and before she could even get the words out, he put a finger to her lips. "Shh…It's okay. I won't do anything you don't want me to do." He said, pulling his hands out from beneath her shirt, and laying a soft, sweet kiss on her nose, followed by one on her lips, and then several more down her lips and onto her neck. She had again, smiled into the kiss. She couldn't help it! He was so sweet – there was no way all men were this sensitive and in tune to her feelings. He worked at her neck for a bit, feeling her back arch her body closer into his, letting out soft, innocent moans. As he worked on her neck, he brought his fingers up to her V-neck and pulled at it a bit, so the V was as far down as it would go without ripping, and he kissed and tugged at her chest with his mouth, inducing small yelps from her. He held the top of her shirt down with one hand, as he interlaced their fingers above her head with the other. He looked at her waiting for her to tell him to stop, but she just laid back with her eyes shut, so he kept going at her chest and back up to her neck and lips. His one hand left her V-neck, and caressed her stomach under her shirt again. He couldn't help himself, he loved the touch of her bare skin. He quickly removed his hands from her shirt to remove his own, and his hand returned to her side as he kissed her. As their kisses went from innocent to deeper once more, he brought his hand to her small breast – over the shirt, as per her prior reaction, and once again, the blonde yelped beneath him, shimmying up the bed a bit. Her cheeks were red.

"I'm not… I mean, I…" she stuttered, partly feeling a numb sort of tingling in her lips from their kisses rubbing them raw, and partly because she was so sensitive about her body that she didn't like the idea of anyone touching her where she was so vulnerable. She felt like an idiot, she should be enjoying that, she thought.

"Just over the shirt… Come on, Chloe… we're both adults here. I think you're underestimating how amazing…" he stopped, looked her up and down, particularly stopping at her breasts, and back up to her face to continue "you are… your body…" He ran his hand down her sides "Chloe, you're making me so _aroused, _fuck…" He pressed his lips to hers again. She melted into the kiss, and he pulled away, placing his hand very lightly over her breast again, while looking her in the eyes. This time, she nodded, and he continued to knead lightly at her breasts while kissing her lips, hard. He twisted her tiny nipples, and only imagined the dark shade of pink they were probably turning as they hardened. With the thought, he got completely rock hard, and she could feel it against her inner thigh. He moaned into her mouth as he kissed her hard, and she felt highly of herself in a weird way, knowing she was able to turn him on like this. "_Fuck, _Chloe. You're such a tease," he moaned into her ear, nibbling at it and kissing her neck and back to her lips, cradling her head. "Do you want … me?" He pulled away, straddling her and looking down into her innocent eyes, which were still diluted with her first tastes of ecstasy from the night so far, and the innocence that was still trying to figure out if he was asking her to be his girlfriend, or if he was in the middle of an incoherent, hormone driven sentence that he had yet to finish.

_Want what? _She thought, and waited another moment before asking, wanting to figure things out for herself. But before she could, he had climbed off of her to stand beside his bed. He walked away to the corner, near his dresser where they'd started. She swung her legs over the end of the bed and looked over at him, then distracted by the clock above his TV. _12:32. Thank goodness Mom thinks I'm sleeping at Kendall's. By the time he picks that movie and we watch it, it will be so late. My mom would be so pissed if I just waltzed in at 2:30 a.m., like "Hey mom, sorry I was out. Night!" _She laughed to herself at the improbability of the scenario.

She looked back over to him, but he was coming back to her without a DVD, and his jeans suddenly gone, revealing his pink Valentine's Day boxers and muscular dancer-turned-ball player legs. He returned to his position and pulled her under him once more.

"I thought you were picking a movie," She said, looking into his pretty eyes, which were only inches away from her face now.

He laughed "Oh, Chloe, you're so cute." He kissed her hard. "Do you…_want_ to?" He asked, holding up a small, black square package. As it crumpled in his fingers, she realized what it was – a condom.

"Uhm…" She got nervous. She didn't know how to say no without disappointing him. The worst part was…she wasn't sure that she _wanted_ to say no. She knew she should, since it was technically their first date… and she never thought she was the type of girl to give it away so easy. But at the same time, she couldn't deny that she was having a good time…he was making her feel _beautiful._ His lustful eyes looked at her like she maybe had magic in her, and she'd never felt that towards her before. Besides, Kendall talked about her male endeavors all the time, and Nia had been dating her boyfriend for years…

In the lull waiting for her response, Nick wasted no time in going back to kissing her neck, and up to her ear "Come on, I know you want it. You _want_ me" he growled into her ear. "I've…never done this before." She whispered back, as he sucked away at her neck, making it hard for her to talk without moaning. She chose her words carefully, to neither say yes or no, hopeful that they could continue making out as they'd been doing.

But he had other plans. He slid his hands down her sides once more, and stopped at her thigh this time. He squeezed, and then pushed his hand under her to squeeze her butt. She laughed instinctively, but this only caused him to squeeze harder. He slid his hands up her skirt, and tugged at her teeny gray lace. She never meant to be sexy with her little underwear, she just needed something that didn't show under her tights, which she'd thankfully removed in the car.

"You can't deny you want this," he said, teasing her about the dampness between her legs. Her face turned bright red, and she watched as he pulled back, opened the condom, and pulled his member free from his boxers and unrolled the condom over himself. He climbed atop her once more, kissing her. "If I tell you it hurts…you'll stop, right?" she looked into his eyes, pleadingly, realizing this was happening now whether she was ready or not.

The tricky thing about being a dancer was that your body was your instrument. This meant people were constantly critiquing, touching, disciplining, and yelling at your body. She was used to not having a choice when it came to her physical being, and so unfortunately, in this situation, she forgot that he shouldn't have this power. He was not her bedtime Miss Abby. But she still felt something special. _This is it. He really must like me, _Chloe thought one more time before feeling his member rub against her clit up and down a few times, causing her to grip the sheets of his bed with one hand, and put the other to his chest – just in case she felt the need to push him away. He grabbed her hand lingering on his chest and pulled it above her head. He lowered his member to her entrance, and slowly started to enter her in very small increments. She was incredibly tight, and he was well-endowed – a painful combination for Chloe and a slow process for him.

Honestly, she didn't think he would really do it. Sure, it was _there_ at that moment, but she didn't see it really happening. She knew she would chicken out in a moment, and he would pull away, and either be really cute, or she'd be really embarrassed and leave.

She bit her lip hard and squeezed his hand, yelping "Ow, ow, ow, Nick…" She grumbled. It was barely in.

"Shhhh, it's okay" he said to comfort her, and put his lips to hers. He continued to kiss her hard as he thrusted in and out of her entrance as hard as he could, trying to get himself inside desperately.

"OW….ow…owwwwwwww…It hurts," she broke the kiss. But he just cooed at her and locked their lips back together. He was about halfway in, maybe more, she couldn't tell. Her center felt like it was on fire, and she felt tears forming in her eyes.

And yet, she hadn't said "Stop," or "No." yet. She was determined now. She continued to whine, but she wasn't a quitter. Years ago, Abby had ignited a fire in her that made her go to the ends of the Earth to prove to herself that she _could, _especially when there was doubt from any direction. She was a fighter.

He distracted her with hard kisses and neck sucking as he thrusted to make her forget about the pain and the fact that he was pounding her tight, virgin opening. Finally, he was inside, and she was still very achy. He pulled away from her lips and held her sides as he rocked in and out of her.

At first, she was still in a lot of pain, and was closing her eyes, wincing, afraid to look at him. But after she settled into his movement, she felt…bored. Sure, he was well-endowed, but he was selfish. He was using her body as a masturbatory tool to get himself off, instead of a two-way act. She kept thinking _Shit, is this real? Is this really happening? Shouldn't I be enjoying this? I just want this to be OVER. _She started to rock towards him, trying to understand the logistics of the deed, and trying to feel what she had felt when he had grazed his penis over her clit – something she'd never felt or done before. But he held her hips down to stop her, and thrusted harder into her. She hit her head on his headboard and few times, but he didn't stop.

She spent the next few minutes – which seemed to drag on in her head – trying to figure out how to get out of this, and praying he would finish soon.

Of course, he finished soon after with a final thrust and grunt, and pulled out of her, tossing the condom aside and rolling over on his side. He grabbed his remote, and finally pressed play on his DVD player. Pulp Fiction was on. Chloe hated this movie.

But it didn't matter, because he fell asleep within minutes of the start. They hadn't even talked about what had just happened in his bed. She was still fully dressed, with the exception of her underwear – which she couldn't find anywhere. She tried not to move too much, as to not wake him up. _Damn it, where did they go? God, this is SO awkward. Do I wake him up? Sneak out? Sleep here? Why wasn't this part of Sex Ed sophomore year?" _She thought, silently reprimanding herself for not having more of an idea about bedside etiquette.

She decided to lay still next to him for a bit, before getting antsy. She started to move towards him, and make rather loud, fake sleeping noises trying to wake him up. She just wanted to go home to her own bed, honestly.

After what felt like forever – even longer than the incessant thrusting into the headboard she'd just endured - he woke up and groggily smiled at her before sitting up and handing her her shoes from under his bed. "I'll text you" he kissed her again. She grabbed her bag from the corner and felt his arm pulled her body against his as he walked her to the door, butt naked. His parents weren't home.

He kissed her again before opening the door for her and watching her get into her car.

And when she did, she put the key into the ignition, and as the engine turned over, she realized there were tears on her steering wheel, and then noticed that she couldn't see. She was sobbing. But she wasn't sure why.

Sure, she was unimpressed, but she figured that it was normal for a girls' first time. _It hurt so much at first that I'm sure it would be impossible to have eyes-rolling-into-the-back-of-your-head, toe-curling, mind-blowing sex the first time. He even tried to be gentle…_ she thought _Stop crying,_ she pleaded with herself internally, before wiping her face harshly.

_Maybe he found that thing inside of you… maybe it really is there, _she thought, remembering all the times her mother told her that the right man would look at her like she was magic. And in her emotional state, she mistook his lustful eyes for those of admiration.

"Maybe, magic" she said softly to herself, before driving away slowly, taking the long way home. As she pulled into her driveway, she realized a few more tears had made their way out of her eyes. "Pull yourself together, you're supposed to be happy" she grumbled "You are happy." She convinced herself as she flattened her skirt over her legs, suddenly aware that she had never actually found her panties.

She groaned with embarrassment and tiptoed gracefully around her house and sneaking in her back door.

"Chloe!?" She heard echoing through the living room.

_Fuck. _


End file.
